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These are a doll’s house-sized version of the soufganiot, which have come, strangely, via the Austro-Hungarian servant-class of the French court of Marie-Antoinette, to become the Israeli Hanukkah delicacy. I’ve made the doughnuts small, chiefly because it is much easier to fry them like this. When they’re normal size – and we all know what normal size is for a doughnut, one of the most heavenly creations to have been put on this earth – I find it hard to get the centre cooked before the outside burns.

Method

Warm the milk and butter together in a saucepan, taking it off the heat when the butter is melting. Put the flour, yeast, salt and 25g / 2 tablespoons of the sugar in a bowl. Beat the egg into the warmed milk and butter and pour this into your bowl of dry ingredients, mixing with a wooden spoon. Either using your hands, or the dough-hook of a freestanding mixer, knead the dough until it is smooth and silky. If you’re doing this by hand, it’ll probably take about 10 minutes, but it’s beautiful to do, the feeling so glorious as the dough comes alive under your hands.

Pat the satiny dough into a round ball and put into a buttered bowl, cover in clingfilm and leave to rise somewhere warm; it should double in size, and this could take 1–2 hours.

Punch the dough down, and knead again to make the dough smooth. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to a 2cm / 1 inch thickness, and cut out circles with a 4cm / 1½ inch round cutter. You can re-roll the dough to make more circles.

Make the dough circles into flatter rounds in your hands and then put an 1/8 teaspoon jam in the centre and fold in half, like a pasty or an agnolotto, pinching the edges before rolling it in your hands to turn it back into a round doughnut. Sit the doughnuts on a baking sheet as you make them, flattening them down slightly, so that you have stout little bulging discs in front of you.

Meanwhile, heat the oil to 190°C / 375°F in a deep-fat fryer, and then cook the mini doughnuts roughly six at a time for about 5 minutes in total, flipping them over halfway through cooking so that they brown evenly on all sides. If you’re not using a deep-fat fryer but just a pan filled with hot oil, watch the oil doesn’t overheat, as it’ll make the little doughnuts darken too quickly.

Put the remaining sugar into a shallow bowl and as the doughnuts come out of the fryer, dredge them in the sugar, rolling them around to get an even coating.